Photo by Tobias Munich
I’ve been on the go quite a lot recently, and so the way I’ve been keeping the internet updated is through my mobile phone (that’s cellphone for non-UK readers).
And while I’ve been doing some consultancy for a couple of people who are putting their whole record label business into their laptops and shutting down their office entirely (really) — I don’t think we’re anywhere near at the point yet where we can then miniaturise that a step further and put the whole thing in our pockets (though the iPhone is a step in that direction).
I haven’t been updating this site in the meantime much either – but that said, there is a lot you can do from your phone. I know people who are uploading their gig photos directly to Flickr. I’m using Twitter to make mini-blog posts and I’m just starting to use Utterz to post audio comments up online.
It might not be blogging, per se, but it’s certainly getting your stuff up online with the kind of regularity and quality that you need if you’re dealing with the sort of organisation that has a fan base to negotiate.
Call it microblogging. Everyone else does.
Of course, you can sell things and buy things via mobile phone now. If you’re not selling merchandise and music at gigs using mobile payments, you’re missing a trick. Go have a play with PayPal Mobile.
Likewise, bluetooth broadcasting technology at gigs is a great way to give people stuff that will act as a souvenir and driver of traffic back to your site.
And with a bit of setup, the things that you send to the internet from your phone can be automatically incorporated into your website. My Twitter feed, for instance, turns up in the sidebar of my personal blog as a What I’m Doing Now entry.
Your photos can be incorporated into your RSS feed.
And if you have access to a scanner, all of your important documents can be carried around on the little internal memory card, ready to be taken out and printed whenever necessary.
It’s also a business card that you can upload directly into your new colleague’s address book with just a few button presses.
You may not be able to draft contracts (yet) or post 12″ records to Lithuania with it, but it’s amazing what you can get done with that little device of yours.
Apparently you can even use it to talk to people who are not in the same place as you.